Dr Paul Reilly
- Senior Lecturer in Communications, Media & Democracy (Sociological & Cultural Studies)
email:
Paul.Reilly@glasgow.ac.uk
pronouns:
He/him/his
613, 42, Bute Gardens, Glasgow, G12 8RT
Biography
I was appointed Senior Lecturer in Communications, Media and Democracy in the School of Social & Political Sciences at the University of Glasgow in June 2022. I am currently programme leader for the MSc Media, Culture & Society and coordinate modules such as MCS Independent Research Project, Media and Conflict Transformation in Divided Societies, and Social Justice Activism in the Information Age. I am also a member of the Glasgow University Media Group.
Before moving to Glasgow, I was employed at the University of Sheffield as Senior Lecturer in Social Media & Digital Society (October 2015-May 2022) and Lecturer in Media and Communication at the University of Leicester (November 2009- September 2015). At Sheffield, I held a number of leadership roles including Deputy Director for PGR Student Affairs in the Faculty of Social Sciences (October 2016-September 2018), Deputy Director of Learning and Teaching (August 2019-May 2022) and Ethics Coordinator (October 2018-September 2021) within the Information School. I was awarded the University of Leicester Teaching Fellowship in January 2014 in recognition of my contribution to the enhancement of teaching in the Department of Media and Communication through the development and promotion of digital media technologies. I also received the Leicester Students’ Union Superstar Award in May 2015 for my sensitivity to responding to student learning needs.
I am a media and communication researcher with a specific interest in how social media are used to frame contentious political issues within divided societies. I have written two books on the role of the internet in conflict transformation in Northern Ireland (Framing the Troubles Online: Northern Irish Groups and Website Strategy and Digital Contention in a divided society: social media, parades and protest in Northern Ireland). My work has been published in a number of journals including European Journal of Communication, First Monday, Information, Communication & Society, Journalism, New Media & Society, and Policy & Internet. Recently completed research projects include a British Academy funded study of YouTube footage of the union flag protests in Northern Ireland, a study of how social media is used by first responders during crisis situations funded by the EU 7th Framework Programme for Research (FP7) and a Horizon 2020 funded study of how social media can be used to build community resilience against disasters. I am currently Vice-Chair of of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) Crisis, Security and Conflict Communication Working Group, and was previously Chair of the Media, Communication and Cultural Studies Association (MeCCSA) Policy Network and Researcher-in-Residence at the Doc Media Centre. I was a regular contributor to the LSE Democratic Audit blog and have appeared on media outlets including BBC News Channel, BBC News Arabic, France 24, LBC News and Reuters. I have been an invited speaker at events organised by the Arts Marketing Association (East Midlands), Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly Committee on Culture, Science, the European Police College (CEPOL), Political Studies Association, and the Royal United Services Institute.
Research interests
My research interests include:
- Crisis communication;
- Digital activism;
- Digital media and contentious parades and protests;
- Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and peace building;
- Media and conflict transformation in divided societies;
- Social media sousveillance;
- Social media research ethics
Grants
Completed Projects
- Beyond Religion and Belief, consultancy undertaken on behalf of Nil by Mouth, £4000, April – December 2021.
- Trip to World Summit on the Information Society 2019, Geneva, Switzerland, Global Leadership Initiative in the Social Sciences (GLOSS), £8700 (PI with Suay Özkula), April 2019.
- Could social media help you in a flood? Economic Social and Research Council Festival of Social Science, £890.00 (PI) November 2017.
- Building Community Disaster Resilience: Helping emergency managers and critical infrastructure operators communicate with the general public during crisis situations, Faculty of Social Science Knowledge and Impact Opportunities (KEIO) Scheme, £4,200 (PI), July 2017 - April 2018.
- #PeaceTech: ICTs and Peacebuilding in divided societies, Digital Societies Research Group, Information School, University of Sheffield, £1146.60 (PI), March – June 2017.
- Risk, Crisis, Disaster and Development Management: Future Leader Programme, Improvement in Research & Education Fund, Kansai University, £32,400 (Co-Investigator, Primary Investigator Nibedita Ray-Bennett), May 2017 – March 2019.
- Social media and adolescent mental health: A preliminary qualitative exploration of the potential use of social media for promoting mental health and wellbeing among 12-18 year olds, Wellcome Trust, Society and Ethics Scheme, £4,160 (Co-Investigator, PI: Michelle O’Reilly), January 2016 - January 2017.
- IMPROVER: Improving Resilience to Crises and Disasters through Preparedness and Experiential Feedback, written in response to the EU Secure Societies call topic DRS-7-2014: Crisis management topic 7: Crises and disaster resilience – operationalizing resilience concepts, £235, 317 out of total project valued at 4.3 million euros, (UK Work Package leader), May 2015 - September 2019. (Grant reference: 653390)
- Screencasts in Engineering, University of Leicester Teaching Enhancement Fund, £2002.00 (Co-Investigator, Primary Investigator, Hugo Williams). February – September 2015.
- CascEff: Modelling of dependencies and cascading effects for emergency management in crisis situations, Seventh Framework Programme of the European Community for Research Technological Development and Demonstration Activities, European Commission, €150 807 (£115, 286.38) out of total project valued at 3, 594, 937.80 euros, (UK Work Package leader), April 2014- August 2017. (Grant reference: 607665).
- YouTube, sousveillance and the policing of union flag protests in Northern Ireland, British Academy, £7,300 (PI), June 2014- June 2015. (Grant reference: SG132416).
- Transformative Networks: Social media, Parades and Protests, Northern Ireland Community Relations Council, £12000 (PI with Orna Young), March – December 2014.
- Assessing the use of Screencasts in the teaching and learning of media and communication studies, University of Leicester Teaching Enhancement Fund, £1336.40 (PI), August 2012- June 2013.
- Mediating Disability in Broken Britain: The Role the Media Plays, Economic Social and Research Council Festival of Social Science (RES-622-26-532), £1680 (PI), November 2012.
- The right blend? The use of Blackboard to support postgraduate dissertation students University of Leicester Teaching Enhancement Fund, £760 (PI), January – August 2012.
Supervision
I welcome applications from students interested in pursuing postgraduate research in the following areas:
- Crisis communication;
- Digital activism;
- Digital media and contentious parades and protests;
- Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and peace building;
- Media and conflict transformation in divided societies;
- Social media sousveillance;
- Social media research ethics.
I have successfully supervised the following PhD students to completion:
- Alex Ricketts, ‘Social media and community disaster resilience: a process based study of South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue,’ (with Dr Martina McGuinness, Management School), White Rose Collaborative Award scholarship, September 2017- July 2024.
- Jenny Hayes, ‘Social media and sousveillance’ (with Dr. Ziqi Zhang), November 2018-October 2022.
- Semra Bodur, ‘Social movements in Turkey: a case study of the 15 July coup’, (awarded subject to minor amendments, September 2021)
- Rahma Al Foori, ‘Environmental Journalism & the Construction of Environmental Coverage in Omani Newspapers’ (awarded subject to minor amendments, November 2015)
- Faith Kibere, ‘Facebook for Development? An ethnographic study of the relationship between the youth and new media in Kibera, Kenya’ (awarded subject to minor amendments, March 2016).
Teaching
Postgraduate
- Media and conflict transformation in divided societies
- Media, Culture & Society independent research project
- Social Justice Activism in the Information Age
I am also currently the Programme Convenor for the MSc Media, Culture and Society.
Professional activities & recognition
Prizes, awards & distinctions
- 2024: Honourable Mention, Best Reviewer (ECREA Communication and Democracy Section)
- 2024: Top Faculty Paper, Activism, Communication and Social Justice Interest Group (International Communication Association (ICA) Activism, Communication and Social Justice Interest Group)
- 2017: Dedicated Outstanding Mentor (University of Sheffield)
- 2015: Superstar Award (University of Leicester Students' Union)
- 2015: 50 most influential UK Higher Education professionals using social media (Jisc)
- 2014: Distinguished Teaching Fellowship (University of Leicester)
Grant committees & research advisory boards
- 2023 - 2024: Cyprus Agency of Quality Assurance and Accreditation in Higher Education, Chair, External Evaluation Committee, Journalism & Media Studies (Higher Diploma)
- 2023: New Possibilities: Student Climate Action and Democratic Renewal, Member, International Expert Group
- 2021 - 2022: Remembering Srebrenica East Midlands, Board Member
- 2020 - 2022: National Teaching Repository, Curator, ICTs and Intercultural Learning
- 2020 - 2022: Arts and Humanities Research Council, COVID-19 Expert Peer Review Group
- 2017 - 2022: Arts and Humanities Research Council, Peer Review College
- 2015: Academic Friends of European Peacebuilding Liaison Office, Member
- 2017 - 2019: FashionBrain: Understanding Europe’s Fashion Data Universe, Ethics Board Member
- 2014 - 2017: Communication and Media Research Center, Board Member
Editorial boards
- 2022: Journal of Visual Political Communication
- 2020: Journal of Social Media for Learning
- 2016: For(e)dialogue
- 2019 - 2021: Frontiers in Communication
- 2017 - 2020: Palgrave Communications
- 2016 - 2016: Online Information Review
Professional & learned societies
- 2021: Member, Conflict Research Society
- 2014: Member, European Consortium for Political Research
- 2017: Ethics Working Group Member, Association of internet Researchers
- 2014: Member, International Association of Media and Communication Research
- 2014: Member, European Communication Research and Education Association
Selected international presentations
- 2024: Watching over the watchers? Ethical dilemmas in qualitative studies of sousveillance on YouTube, paper presented at Communication and (dis)order, 10TH European Communication Conference, European Communication Research and Education Association (Ljubljana, Slovenia)
- 2024: Biased and unrepresentative? A systematic review of Digital Activism Scholarship between 2011 and 2018, paper presented at Communication and (dis)order, 10TH European Communication Conference, European Communication Research and Education Association (Ljubljana, Slovenia)
- 2024: Where is the Global South? A systematic review of regional visibilities in digital activism research, paper presented at Communication and Global Human Rights, International Association of Media and Communication Research conference (Gold Coast, Australia)
- 2023: Random Access Memories or clichéd representations? Exploring historical photographs of the Troubles on Instagram, paper presented at Inhabiting the planet: challenges for media, communication and beyond, IAMCR annual conference (Lyon, France)
- 2023: Where exactly is the Global South? Northern visibilities in digital activism research, paper presented at Technology in Movement, Movement in Technology, International Conference, University of Copenhagen (Copenhagen, Denmark)
- 2022: Where is the Global South? A systematic review of geopolitical representation in digital activism research, paper presented at Decolonising the Internet, Association of internet Research (AoIR) Annual Conference (Dublin, Ireland)
- 2022: In search of the Global South: regional representation in digital activism research, presented at European Consortium of Political Research annual conference, University of Innsbruck, 22-26 August. (Innsbruck, Austria)
- 2022: Easy Data, same old platforms? A Systematic Review of Digital Activism Methodologies, paper presented at One World, One Network? 72nd Annual International Communication Association Conference, (Paris, France)
- 2022: Can machines of hate really facilitate peace? Social media as spaces for intergroup contact in divided societies, paper presented at Peace, Intersectionality and Uncertainties, 6th International Communication and Media Studies Conference (Famagusta, Cyprus)
- 2021: Conflicting memory and social media: Memorializing the Northern Irish troubles on Instagram, paper presented at 8TH European Communication Conference (Braga, Portugal)
- 2021: Social media and intergroup contact during contentious episodes in divided societies: Comparative perspectives from Columbia and Northern Ireland (Nairobi, Kenya)
- 2021: Can social media really ‘End the Harm’? Stakeholder perspectives on the public awareness campaign against paramilitary-style attacks in Northern Ireland, paper presented at Rethinking borders and boundaries” Beyond the global/local dichotomy in communica (Nairobi, Kenya)
- 2019: Social Media as a tool for addressing the ‘Societal Shrug’ existing in relation to Paramilitary-Style Attacks on Young People in Northern Ireland, paper presented at Justice Reimagined: the intersection between academia, government, industry and the commu (Perth, Australia)
- 2019: Whose data is it anyway? Doing ethical social media research in the age of datafication, paper presented at 10th International Conference on Social Media and Society (Toronto, Canada)
- 2019: Strategic techniques for qualitative sampling online – a review of social media monitoring tools towards new approaches for qualitative sampling online, paper presented at 10th International Conference on Social Media and Society (Toronto, Canada)
- 2019: Information disorder and political polarisation in a deeply divided society: the case of ‘post-conflict’ Northern Ireland, paper presented at Communication, Technology and Human Dignity: Disputed Rights, Contested Truths, International Association of Medi (Madrid, Spain)
- 2019: Easy data, usual suspects, same old places? A systematic review of Digital Activism research between 1995-2019, paper presented at iCS Symposium on Social Movements and Parties in a Fractured Media Landscape, Centre for Social Movement Studies (Florence, Italy)
- 2019: PSNIRA vs. peaceful protesters? YouTube, sousveillance and the policing of the union flag protests, presented at Surveillance in the Digital Society, ECIS 2019 (Stockholm, Sweden)
- 2018: Silly citizenship and contentious politics in ‘post-conflict’ Northern Ireland: The case of Loyalists Against Democracy, paper presented at ECREA 7th European Communication Conference, Centres and Peripheries: Communication, Research, Translation (Lugano, Switzerland)
- 2018: Information disorder in a deeply divided society: social media and contentious politics in Northern Ireland, paper presented at Locked out of Social Platforms: An iCS Symposium on Challenges to Studying Disinformation (Copenhagen, Denmark)
- 2018: #Porteouverte, Hashtagged Solidarity, and the November 2015 Paris Terror Attacks, paper presented at World Conference on Humanitarian Studies (The Hague, The Netherlands)
- 2018: November 2015 Paris Terrorist Attacks and Social Media Use: Preliminary findings from authorities, critical infrastructure operators and journalists, presented at 15th ISCRAM Conference (Rochester NY, USA)
- 2017: Should CI operators use social media to communicate with the public during crisis situations? Lessons learned from Oslo Harbour, paper presented at International Conference in Information and Communication Technologies for Disaster Management (Munster, Germany)
- 2017: Public expectations of social media use by critical infrastructure operators during crises: lessons learned from France, 2nd International Federation for Information Processing Conference on Information Technology in Disaster Risk Reduction (Sofia, Bulgaria)
- 2017: Enhancing critical infrastructure resilience through effective crisis communication: Identifying best practices for European CI operators, 5th ECREA Crisis Communication Conference (Lisbon, Portugal)
- 2017: Photographing the ‘Battlefield’: A study of the relationships between photojournalists, police and protesters during the anti-austerity demonstrations in Greece, presented at European Consortium of Political Research annual conference (Oslo, Norway)
- 2017: ) Loyalists against Democracy? Twitter, affective publics and the union flag protests in Northern Ireland, paper submitted to Transforming Culture, Politics & Communication: New media, new territories, new discourses, IAMCR annual conference (Cartagena, Columbia)
- 2017: Challenges and opportunities of digital communication in crisis situations: flows and dynamics of the debates about the Channel Tunnel fire and Storm Desmond on Twitter, presented at Common Good & Self Interest, Congress of Swiss Sociological Association (Zurich, Switzerland)
- 2017: Unreasonable expectations? Examining the use of public tolerance levels as critical infrastructure resilience targets, paper presented at 7th Resilience Engineering Association (Liege, Belgium)
Additional information
Leadership Roles
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Vice-Chair of Crisis, Security and Conflict Communication Working Group, International Association for Media and Communication Research, (September 2021- present)
- Chair, Media, Communication and Cultural Studies Association (MeCCSA) Policy Network (January 2022 – September 2023)
Board Memberships
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Remembering Srebrenica Scotland, June 2024- present)
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VIEWdigital (September 2022- present)
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Remembering Srebrenica East Midlands (July 2021- November 2022)
Research Visits
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Visiting Researcher, Institute of Media Studies, University of Tübingen (April 2024)
External Examiner
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External Examiner, MA International Political Communication, Bournemouth University (June 2024- present).
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Member, External Evaluation Committee, Journalism and Media Production (2 years 120 ECTS Diploma, KES College, Cyprus Agency of Quality Assurance and Accreditation in Higher Education (February 2024).
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External Programme Validator, MA Data, Culture and Society, Liverpool University (October 2020- February 2021)
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External Examiner, Communication & Society and Media, Nottingham Trent University (September 2020 – April 2022)